Aiming for top 10 spot: Ashwini

Promising womens doubles player Ashwini Ponappa said that a bronze in the womens doubles event in the World Championships 2011 has boosted her morale.

Promising womens doubles player Ashwini Ponappa said that a bronze in the womens doubles event in the World Championships 2011 has boosted her morale. She said that while her immediate aim is to do well in ongoing Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold Badminton in which she will be seen in action in the womens doubles event from Thursday,she has had this at the back of her mind that her womens doubles pair should reach the top ten in the world ranking in order to be safe as far as securing a berth at the Olympics is concerned.

In the mixed doubles first round today,Maneepong Jongjit and Savitree Amitapai of Thailand beat Ashwini and Tarun Kona 21-15,21-16. But she appeared confident about the womens doubles challenge ahead.

Our pair (Ashwini and Jwala Gutta) enjoys 14th rank in womens doubles event but we will be concentrating hard on the tournaments ahead to ensure that it improves to 10th. Besides this tournament,the tourneys at Korea and Malaysia will provide us good preparation ahead of the Olympics. I just hope that we get a chance to participate in the Olympics.

She feels that the area which needs improvement to attain the desired ranking is consistency in performance and she has been working hard on that.

Ashwini said that the womens doubles gold which she and Jwala won at Commonwealth Games 2010 and the performances of Jwala and Diju and Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar have motivated youngsters towards doubles events. In India,doubles events are not given that much of importance but the performances of the players definitely encourages young boys and girls to play in the doubles events.

Aditi loses,Sameer shocks Chan

After top seed Saina Nehwals pulled out of the tournament,the Indian challenge in the womens singles event suffered yet another setback in the Yonex-Sunrise Syed Modi Memorial International Grand Prix Gold Badminton Championships when Tsz Ka Chan of Hong Kong defeated last editions runners-up Aditi Mutatkar 21-15,22-24,21-17 after a 53 minute battle at Uttar Pradesh Badminton Academy,Lucknow on Wednesday evening.

In the mens section,the hosts had a reason to cheer about when Sameer Verma,who is a qualifier in the tournament,upset third seeded player Hans-Kristian Vittinghus of Denmark 11-21,21-14,25-23 in the mens singles second round. The battle lasted for 57 minutes. In the first round,Sameer had defeated Dharma Alrie Guna of Indonesia 21-13,21-7 in 24 minutes. In an important first round match,Pakkawat Vilailak of Thailand shocked Ajay Jayaram (seed-9) 21-19,21-19 after a 37 minute fight.

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Former world champion and second seeded player Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia who is a star attraction in the tournament beat Yu Hsien Lin (Tpe) 21-19,21-5 in the second round.

On Thursday,the matches start from 2.00 pm onwards.

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Aiming for top 10 spot: Ashwini

Promising womens doubles player Ashwini Ponappa said that a bronze in the womens doubles event in the World Championships 2011 has boosted her morale.

Promising womens doubles player Ashwini Ponappa said that a bronze in the womens doubles event in the World Championships 2011 has boosted her morale.